


Deliver Us From Evil

by laireshi



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: 3 Vergil, Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:54:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21516385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi
Summary: It was his future looking him in the face now: broken and corrupted, a mockery of who he was. Strong and powerful, but not in the way Vergil craved. He could sense it, a foreign, revolting power surrounding this man, forced deep under his skin, down to his very soul.And he didn’t have the Yamato.It was a nightmare scenario, and Vergil was very, very sure he was wide awake.
Relationships: Nelo Angelo & Vergil
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43





	Deliver Us From Evil

**Author's Note:**

> **There are warnings in end notes.**
> 
> Written for the [Vergilcest Week](https://twitter.com/vergilcestweek) on twitter. It's an idea I've had a long time ago and never really meant to write until yesterday, because I am a writer and planning my projects happens to someone else.

Vergil considered himself a patient man, for the most part, but he abhorred fighting Geryons. A dying breed, these days, but this was a second one he’d run into, and for all that the Geryon’s corpse would have precious ingredients for him to use in his research, he found himself irritated. Not many things were able to slow him down, but Geryon’s time field could manage it for a few seconds.

Not that it would affect the end result of this fight. Geryons weren’t difficult opponents, nothing close to a threat; just irksome. Vergil was very good at dispatching any annoyances.

He dealt the killing blow, the Yamato slashing neatly through the horse’s neck, separating its head from its body. Vergil was midway through sheathing her when the world around him went dark and he realised he couldn’t move. He debated letting his demon free to break out of whatever field surrounded him, but he didn’t sense more enemies nearby—and then he could see and move again, continuing sliding the Yamato down her sheath like he’d never paused in it, like he’d only been trapped in a microsecond for an extended moment.

Fitting, considering the demonic corpse at his feet, only it _was_ a corpse, and shouldn’t have had this power. And . . . 

He looked around quickly, scanning his surroundings. He was—he _had been_ near an old library, rumoured to have strange incidents happening near it. That usually meant _demons_ , so he’d investigated and found the Geryon. Now, however . . . The building was the same, only much more deteriorated; ruins, really. It’d been clearly abandoned even moments ago, the windows broken and the door non-existent, random bits of brick falling from its facade, but still standing. He could’ve walked its corridors, see if anything remained but empty shelves and mould. Now half of it was collapsed in on itself, vegetation already claiming parts of it back. He doubted that the parts that still stood had enough structural integrity for him to venture inside without it falling down on him.

Travelling in time was not something he’d wanted to engage in. It wasn’t inconceivable by any means—he’d read the appropriate treaties and grimoires on the topic and then discarded them as too risky a plan to accomplish his goals. He knew the rituals needed to create a time gate, though, just as he knew that the Yamato was potentially able of cutting through time in addition to space if he’d fed her enough additional power. As such a thing would consume most of his energy, he’d rather avoid it. Depleting all of his power wouldn’t be wise in unknown conditions like this. He would have to find his way back in a different way.

Years of growing up on the run from demons made him swirl around, draw the Yamato and raise her to block on instinct in time. A metallic clang resounded in the air as a wide broadsword hit his blade. 

“One never could expect honour from the likes of you, demon,” Vergil snarled. 

His new opponent was a humanoid demon much bigger than him clad in a black, ugly armour with a horned helmet covering its face. Something about him made Vergil’s blood curdle in his veins. A foolish reaction: the demon knight could not be a match for him, but there was an aura of _wrongness_ about him; a twisted familiarity resonating within Vergil’s demon. 

Vergil disengaged and jumped back. “Do I know you?” he demanded, but his only answer was a roar that almost sounded pained. 

Vergil would put him out of his misery soon enough. 

He attacked, a quick cut with the Yamato, but the demon was fast, jumping out of the way and immediately starting an attack of his own. 

Vergil dodged—barely. They traded blows, but the other demon moved like he knew where Vergil would aim almost before he did it; always remaining a step out of reach. Vergil, always preferring to rely on his speed, evaded rather then blocked most of the hits. That first one had been strong, an actual challenge to his own strength. A rare occurrence, to find someone able to rival him other than Dante. 

(But this demon . . . He was stronger than Dante. _Of course_ he was; Vergil was the one who had to be strong enough to protect them both.)

Vergil pushed the thought away. Bored of this game, he sent his summoned swords after the demon while attacking with a wide arc of the Yamato.

None of the summoned swords hit the target, but that wasn’t why Vergil froze in shock for a moment. He paid for it with a wound on his left arm, and thrown out of his reverie, he distanced himself from the demon again, but the sight remained burnt behind his eyelids: his blue spectral swords attacking the knight—hitting the same kind of summoned swords instead, two identical attacks cancelling each other out.

Really, truly _identical_. 

It couldn’t be. 

“Who are you?” he asked once more, but the demon didn’t answer. 

Vergil frowned. Releasing his demon, he attacked with double the speed and ferocity. The knight raised his sword to parry, but Vergil wasn’t aiming for any vital point—instead he hit the helmet, cutting through the metal just enough so that it fell down from the demon’s head. 

Vergil looked at his face and almost doubled in half in pain and disgust. 

He knew the face looking at him, he would always recognise it—even now, covered with scars, something black that summoned the word _corruption_ crawling across the veins on his neck and higher up, over his cheek and towards his eyes, unfamiliar in the picture of impossible familiarity, burning red instead of the icy cold blue.

The truth that the demon in Vergil had known all along.

“Why attack me?” Vergil whispered in a moment of weakness, another question that he didn’t expect an answer to, but instead the demon— _him_ , it was _him_ , not a doppelgänger or a shapeshifter but clearly _him_ from some other time—surprised him once more. He pointed at Vergil, then at himself, and shook his head. 

_What happened to him?_ Vergil wondered, but didn’t ask. He hadn’t felt that much at a loss since he was eight years old and his demon tore out of him for the first time.

It was his future looking him in the face now: broken and corrupted, a mockery of who he was. Strong and powerful, but not in the way Vergil craved. He could _sense_ it, a foreign, revolting power surrounding this man, forced deep under his skin, down to his very soul. 

And he didn’t have the Yamato.

It was a nightmare scenario, and Vergil was very, very sure he was wide awake. 

This might have been the one fight he was not ready for; the one fight he could never have imagined. _How_ could he fight himself? How could he ever arrive at the point where he’d want to kill himself?

(Why didn’t he do just that, then; attacking his past self was a terribly complicated way to erase one’s existence, but then—that foreign presence permeating the demon’s aura like an ever-present manacles, something invading his very being . . . Maybe this was the only chance he had.)

Vergil was facing an image of his own weakness, of a failure beyond all comprehension, and he swore to himself he’d never let himself become that. Was it _really_ him? Or was it just a shadow, a broken man with no identity left?

He sheathed the Yamato. He inclined his head in the direction of the other man.

“Go on, then,” he challenged. “Do it.”

There was a flicker of an expression on the other man’s face, too fast to identify were he anyone else—but Vergil knew his own face and what sorrow looked like on it. Sorrow and grief.

He steeled himself. 

The future him charged at him, his sword held securely. Vergil looked into his red, foreign eyes, trying to find himself in them—

But he was gone, destroyed utterly within his own body. 

He took a swing, wide, strong, designed to take Vergil’s head clear off his neck. A fast, merciful death. 

And then he _stopped_ , a blade width away from Vergil. He looked at his sword and hurled it away, didn’t even look after it, and fell to his knees in front of Vergil. Like this, they could face each other at the same level.

 _There_ , something Vergil recognised in his eyes as he looked at the Yamato. And then his expression turned pleading. 

Vergil swallowed. “I’ll avenge you,” he swore, but the man inside him shook his head mutely, fear like Vergil never knew crossing his face. 

But Vergil _would_ do it. He would make sure this wouldn’t be him, and he’d make whoever was responsible (and he wasn’t stupid; he had a guess) _pay_. 

First things first. He untied the Yamato from his waist. He held her in parallel to the ground, flat against both his hands, and like that, he handed her to this man who’d just been trying to kill him. 

A foolish move, maybe, but there was no one else Vergil owed this respect to. 

The man in front of him, the one who he wouldn’t let himself become, didn’t take her from him. He just touched her sheath, his fingers curling around the hilt briefly—his gauntlet was too big for him to be able to truly wield her. Vergil wondered why he didn’t remove it to touch the Yamato with his bare skin, but then he realised the only thing that would stop him from doing that was if he simply _couldn’t_.

“Can you feel her?” Vergil asked. “She doesn’t mind you touching her.”

He could feel her grief and recognition, her sympathy, her unspoken promise to keep him safe from this future. He promised her something of his own: _I’d never lose you_.

The Vergil in front of him _smiled_. It looked strange on his scarred face, but for a brief moment, he seemed at peace. Then he let the Yamato go and looked at Vergil, a request in his eyes that Vergil could not, would not reject. 

Vergil unsheathed the Yamato. 

He needed power to protect himself and keep himself alive, but he could only protect this broken Vergil in one way—one he’d normally find unacceptable, contrary to everything he stood for, and yet one that he knew was necessary. His demon was crying out in his soul at the pain radiating from the other Vergil. This situation could not continue.

Vergil put his hand gently to the other man’s cheek, tracing the black lines running across it. He flinched away from the touch for a moment, then leant into it, closing his eyes.

Trusting.

Vergil stabbed the Yamato straight through his heart.

He stepped closer, caught him as he collapsed, held him as he shivered through his last moments. He pulled the Yamato free and closed his eyes.

It was raining.

**Author's Note:**

> So this was somehow inspired by Archer from Fate/stay night. Credit to the wonderful, wonderful [vorokis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vorokis) for 3V deciding to stop fighting and let Nelo attack him.
> 
> Warning for 3V killing Nelo Angelo at the end . . . But he freed him, too.
> 
> There's also a [twitter post](https://twitter.com/tonytears/status/1197661457472729088) for it.


End file.
